Frequently, persons who travel find themselves without a toothbrush. Numerous devices have been proposed to make it more convenient for a traveler to carry a toothbrush. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 174,832 entitled "Pocket Toothbrush" issued to McChesney on Mar. 14, 1876 discloses a collapsible toothbrush that may be stored within a hollow handle. Numerous variations on this theme have been described over the years.
A number of folding toothbrushes have also been disclosed. For example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 345,517 issued to Lakin; 766,247 issued to Heilrath; 905,886 issued to Kinney; 2,620,810 issued to Van Handel; 2,744,278 issued to Roth: 2,790,449 issued to Hennings: and 2,850,753 issued to Pelletier all disclose toothbrushes having a hinged handle such that the brush can be folded back upon or within the handle to make it more convenient to carry. All such toothbrushes require the assembly of numerous individual pieces in order to provide a hinged structure. Such toothbrushes are primarily intended to be repetitively used by travelers since the complexity of their structure renders them too expensive to be disposable.
Disposable toothbrushes such as may be dispensed by a vending machine or provided as a courtesy by hotels, airlines and the like, are also known in the art. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,521,128 issued to O'Neal discloses a disposable toothbrush having a hollow squeezable handle for dispensing a dentifrice. U.S. Pat. No. 4,530,129 issued to Labick et al discloses a disposable toothbrush which, in one embodiment, is slidingly collapsible within a hollow handle. However, these disposable toothbrushes do not offer the compact size and convenience of a folding toothbrush.
There remains a need, therefore, for a toothbrush that can be folded into a compact size, yet is inexpensive to produce such that it can be disposed of after a single use.